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Fearless Fitness Tip of the Week: HOLY HILLS!

When I first moved from Davis to San Francisco I was BLOWN away by the hills that I encountered each day. I’d never seen inclines as steep in the Valley. I would constantly dread going up and found ways to avoid all the crazy slopes. But after a while the flat routine started to get boring. The hills weren’t going anywhere and did have nice views to share….. it was time to GET OVER my hill fear.

Week after week I bravely added more incline to my training routine. Each hill was a challenge to face, no matter how slow my pace. I changed my attitude – instead of dread I would think confident instead. And yes, I have been known to scream “Bring It!” when running up – the san francisco tourists LOVE IT 🙂

Besides amazing summit views, hitting the hills is HUGELY beneficial. Practice hills and week after week your body will adapt to the stress and get STRONGER. The “hills are alive” with amazing strength and speed benefits…. but why does it hurt so much to get? IT TAKES MORE WORK. You have to recruit more muscle fibers to work up the hill, causing muscles to fatigue faster. There may be no way around the effort involved with hill climbing….. but adjust your workouts and your mental game and you CAN find the FUN hill training 🙂

Fearless Fitness Challenge Of the Week: HILL TRAINING!

Get your legs ready…. its time for some HILLS! This week I challenge you to try a hill workout or two and take your fitness to the NEXT LEVEL. You can walk or you can run…. but its time for you to go GET SOME!

Think of a hill workout as a running-specific weight workout. You’re fighting gravity to lift your bodyweight with your legs, in a running motion.The exaggerated knee lift, driving arms, and pronounced toe-off necessary to run up hills strengthens you every bit as much as hitting the weight room. Hill running also works the cardiovascular system as your heart tries to keep pace with the increased energy required to fight gravity. Hill workouts are very taxing and should be done only once or twice a week.

Best way to start working hills into your workouts? I recommend finding a hilly course with some variety. Run strong up the hills and coast down them. If you’ve never done hill workouts before, don’t go crazy in the beginning… just run easy up the hills and slow down them, until your body gets used to it. You can also opt to do hill repeats if you’re stuck with a solo slope. Run strong up and easy down… then repeat, repeat, REPEAT!

As always, if you have any comments or questions, feel free to contact me! Have a great time HILL CLIMBING this week. I hope to see you in a class or around the lululemon grant avenue store soon.